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Hugh Hendry |
In 2009 I would have chosen a 100% Federal Income Tax Holiday over the ARRA+ Stimulus to grow economy #samecost (+/-3%) #betterresults
2009 Federal Income Taxes paid $866 Billion (http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html)
2009 ARRA = $840 Billion (http://www.recovery.gov/Transparency/fundingoverview/Pages/fundingbreakdown.aspx) #taxholiday
What would you have spent your tax savings on?
Unsustainable public employee pension plan costs will continue to decrease the value provided by government to taxpayers.
In 2007 I co-authored a prophetic report titled “Unfunded Liabilities- Our Community’s Fiscal Time Bombs.” The 2007 report highlighted the crisis brewing in relation to public employee pension funds. Less than a year after the report was published the crisis was exacerbated as the economy and stock market (critical to pension plan health) crashed.
I am of the opinion that decades of failed leadership, overwhelming public employee union power and mis-management by CALPERS have created a crisis that is too big to solve. Leadership (on Federal, State and Local levels) continues to ignore the crisis, public employee unions continue to grow stronger and CALPERS shows no intentions of shifting to a sustainable program.
I don’t expect our politicians (on all levels) to reform public employee pension plans. Instead, I expect the value provided to taxpayers to continue to drop. Accepting that each public employee adds value to taxpayers we must also accept that paying more for fewer public employees significantly decreases the value to taxpayers. Though this crisis exists across the United States (and around the globe, see Greece) I will use Nevada County (in my opinion a very well run County) to support my point:
In 2001 “salaries and benefits” were 39% of the annual budget. Today “salaries and benefits” equal 47% of the annual budget. This INCREASE in cost coincided with a substantial DECREASE in the number of employees (from 1055 employees in 2001 to 777 employees today; a drop of 26%). In other words “salaries and benefits” increased substantially while the number of active public employees dropped to its lowest point in decades. Consider this, in 2001 the average “salaries and benefits” paid per employed was $127,962. In 2011/12 budget that expense per active employee is expected to grow to over $222,500; an increase of 73%!
Taxpayers should expect a continuation of this trend throughout all levels of the public sector.
The role of government will increasingly be that of a glorified pension plan administrator, existing as a conduit between taxpayers and retired public employees. As the unsustainable pension plans run their course taxpayers can expect to see less bang for their buck for decades to come.
| — | – C.S. Lewis |
Have you ever ruminated on the difference between a tithe (voluntary contribution to a christian organization- i.e. church) and an income tax? Both the tithe and the income tax are contributions made by individuals to, in theory, a collective. The tithe is freely given while the income tax (not to mention other taxes) is forced upon society via laws (backed by punishments).
Can governments/politicians learn anything from the voluntary tithing relationship between, say, a congregation and its church?
What motivates individuals to willfully give away their property to the community (without government force)?
Surely such a discussion should include a review of the ‘value proposition’ in each relationship (christian/church, tax payer/the state), impacts on individual liberty, level of equality desired, as well as the impact of Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” dilemma.
Social Security makes for a simple case study: Could/would the Social Security program exist voluntarily (opt-out option)?
| — | Thomas Jefferson |
